


No Place Like Home

by sudapigrafool



Category: Actor RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 16:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1234012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sudapigrafool/pseuds/sudapigrafool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Alexander"-era RPF<br/>Colin needs to talk to Eamon about his affair with Jared.<br/>Colin/Jared (formerly), Colin/Eamon (affectionate)</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Place Like Home

It’s shaving. If it weren’t for that, I could get by just fine, but it’s the business of looking yourself in the eye every morning that’s so unforgiving. As the years pass, the birthdays pass, the holidays, the Christmases, it keeps you honest. Makes a man wonder, you know? - what’s wrong with me?

Twenty-nine next year. And the year after that, well, by thirty, I thought I’d have everything all figured out. A career, a family, a home, security, stability. I had a plan. Once, I can remember, I’d had none. No plan and no future, like too many other young men exactly like me. Fast on my way to nowhere. But I had a good brother, who looked after his little brother and saw where everything was heading. I guess he’d seen a lot already in his life, and wasn’t about to let that happen to me, too.

And maybe it was because he’d known his own kind of adversity, and wouldn’t give in. I think that may have been the thing, really.

We met at his place in the afternoon, and the first words he said to me were, "Have a beer?" I was shaking out my coat and trying to chase the chill out of my bones. The weather outside was as wet and raw as any we’d had so far all season. So, I said, "Yeah." I’m thinking to myself, the least it could do this close to Christmas is snow, not rain. The cold was biting bitter. My fingers had gone stiff without gloves. But that was only because of the dampness. It wasn’t cold enough to snow.

I don’t know what we talked about. Lots of little stuff, meaningless things. The kind of pleasant conversation that works its way down to your insides like comfort food; warm and cozy. Eamon’s voice was in the air all around me, peaceful and soothing, and I could feel myself relaxing into the sound of it.

He was sporting a day or two’s growth of beard that made him look a little scruffy. I like him that way; he’s usually so neat and clean. I can still remember being about eight, or ten years old when Eamon’s beard started to grow in. Not old enough yet to have grown resentful at being kissed or hugged by my male relatives, I remember how the brush and tickle of his unshaven face felt pleasing against my bare skin. Perhaps it’s unusual to think about the physical beauty of your own brother, but when I was a child, Eamon was always an ideal for me. I found excuses to hang around while he was dressing, or bathing, admiring the uniquely masculine contours of his form. He left our family home, and me, not too long after those years, and the house echoed with his absence. Then it was just me, and mum, and the girls.

I drank my beer slowly from the bottle, and leaned against his kitchen counter. A clock in the hall was ticking softly. Everything in Eamon’s house is immaculate, but not fussy. I always feel welcome and at home there. Even if I put my feet up on his coffee table, he doesn’t yell - as long as I take my shoes off first. Sometimes, whenever I’m home, I just go over to Eamon’s so we can watch a game together, or so I say. Then we turn on the game and don’t watch. We just talk with the game on in the background.

There are things about my life that have been disappointing to me lately. Nothing I have to explain to him. He knows. The one thing that he doesn’t know about is because, so far, I haven’t been able to tell him. And it’s been a year ago now, so I can feel it coming on, that fateful conversation. It’s time. Every morning I can see it in my eyes, looking back at me from the bathroom mirror, and I worry about what I’m going to say.

Tonight Eamon helps me put things off for a few more hours by suggesting that we go out for a bite of dinner, rather than cook. I shamble off to his car agreeably, feeling reprieved. Even so, somewhere between the dessert and the coffee, in the very public atmosphere of the restaurant, I start to spill my story. It won’t wait any longer. Oddly, I’m thinking, how safe and private it feels, sitting here in the amber lamplight with the voices and laughter of strangers intruding all around us. When I glance over at the window, pausing to think how I want to say this, I see the drizzling rain has at last turned into a snowfall. Huge, heavy flakes are drifting down lightly, nearly weightless in the cold, still air.

"It was Jared." My voice comes out in a sigh. I’m wondering if I need to say anything more by way of a pre-amble, since the subject had already turned to this deeper vein even before the demitasse. It’s Eamon’s habit to have one after dinner, not mine, but I always enjoy having one with him. Now, the fragile little cup is all I have to hold on to.

"Well," Eamon says, pausing carefully, "Jared’s kind of an exceptional guy."

Exceptional. An interesting choice of word which, perhaps, he’s chosen just in case I want to tell him this was the one exception to my rule. But it wasn’t really that simple, so I continue.

"Alexander used a couple of different methods in siege craft," I say. I know it sounds like I’ve left something out between the part about Jared and this part, but I’m thinking in pictures as I’m trying to explain, and I spread my hands and fingers like I’m reaching for something.

"Sometimes he used siege towers to fight the enemy and mount their walls, and sometimes he used rams to batter them down. And other times he dug under them, undermining their foundations until they collapsed…"

After that, I couldn’t think of what I wanted to say next. So, we sat quietly for a moment. At which point Eamon sensed it was time to pay the bill and go.

I remember clearly when it happened; when the wall went up between Eamon and me. Although I’d spent years thinking about it before I could actually identify the definitive moment, now I know. I’d been standing around under the mistletoe hanging over Eamon’s kitchen doorway one Christmas when Claudine called out gaily from the living room that I owed our brother a kiss. Eamon eyed me gamely, but with a cautious smile, because things had been awkward between us recently. It was hard to say why, but the fault was really all mine, and none of his. I know that now, too. Suddenly, I’d grown rather uncomfortable with his degree comfort about being a gay man. Like a delayed stress reaction from my adolescence, when I had seemed to accept everything easily and completely at the time. Any apparent shock or social repercussions I’d experienced must have passed right through me like gamma rays. Only later do you realize they’ve done some damage.

Claudine, the family fixer, recognized the uncomfortable impasse immediately and grumbling ill-naturedly at our reticence, stalked up to me claiming the kiss, then marched over to Eamon planting it on his cheek. It was a plucky gesture, but I’d already inflicted a pretty grave injury on him by my hesitation. If I’d only had the guts to look up, I probably could have watched him bleed.

So, in this manner, I’d served Eamon notice of our estrangement in front of the whole family. He was very careful with me afterward. Really, I’d been building up to that moment for weeks before hand, he must have sensed it; jumpy and irritable in his proximity, flinching from his touch. God knows, it was confusing as hell for me, too. I didn’t have a clue what had gotten into me. Then later, for what seemed like an eternity, my heart ached like I’d lost my best girl. But, with time, things mended themselves after a fashion. We moved on.

Outside the little restaurant we started walking towards Eamon’s car. We’d had to park a couple blocks away, and the pavement was covered over with a thin coat of white. Our twin footprints left a spotty trail on the pristine, unmarked surface, making a kind of record on our progress getting across this virgin bit of unexplored territory between us.

"Alexander," Eamon stated, reiterating the last salient point in our conversation. "So, then, which method of siege craft did Jared use?" See? He did know what I was trying to get at.

"He undermined the wall," I answered, thinking how cryptic we’d become. And how well we understood each other. And how with Jared, at the time, I’d had a clear sensation of one apparent weight falling away from my shoulders, while it was quickly being replaced by another. I recognized this new weight immediately by its heft and its nature. I’d been bearing one just like it for most of my adult life. It was like the weight of the wall that separated me from my brother.

"Mm." Eamon made a sound acknowledging me. We walked on farther. The damp could still sink into your bones like teeth, and I gave a little shiver turning up my collar around my neck.

"I don’t suppose you surrendered without a fight." Eamon made his statement sound like a question.

"Alexander never surrendered in his life."

"I see." Did he? If so, what was it he could see that I still couldn’t?

"It was a good, clean fight," I added. I don’t know why I felt the need, except that I wanted him to understand there was nothing sleazy about the affair that I was ashamed of. It was what it was; no more and no less.

"And is it over now?"

Good question. I shrugged noncommittally. "We saw each other again a few weeks ago. For the premiere." And before that in LA. The pain was just as fresh every time, and no less intense. Nor were the unsettled feelings any easier.

"Scars?"

"Plenty. You wanna see ‘em?" I snorted. We stopped on an empty street corner watching for the change of the light.

"What did he say to you?" asked Eamon with the slightest hint of urgency and concern in his voice. Trust Eamon to have his old-soldier’s eye out for the most deadly of weapons, words. I suppose having fought in more than a few of these skirmishes himself, he knew.

"He said, ‘Come with me,’" I answered. Which was not quite the simple invitation it presented itself to be. The demands of Jared’s journey through life were daunting indeed, even by Alexander’s standards.

Eamon stood there on the corner studying me while the light changed, with the snow falling in my hair, my hunched-over shoulders shrinking down into my coat, and my nearly frozen fingers shoved in my pockets. After a long moment of silence, I stated the obvious.

"I told him 'no'."

We drove back to the house mostly without talk. When we stepped through the door we fell into a very old, very comfortable routine.

You would think with all the channels on the telly these days, even if it was winter here, somewhere in the world, someone would be playing football. But instead, Eamon settled on an old movie. Maybe he’s trying to avoid the spectacle of all those straining, sweating male bodies for my sake, I think with ironic humor, because I used to kid him about that.

He settles himself in the corner of the couch and I’m sitting at the other end, watching my fingernails grow, wondering what the hell I’m going to say next. Some actress appears in the flickering images before us, working herself into a comical, histrionic stew - I should know her name. It won’t come to me. Being in the profession, people usually think I will know all these things, but I don’t. Eamon is chuckling and I turn a blank expression to him since I haven’t really been following the plot.

That’s when he reaches over and grabs my arm. He slides his other hand around my waist and starts pulling me towards him. "Come on," he says with a note of authority. "Get over here." I’ve been lost in my own world for too long, it seems, and he’s decided to pull me back.

Now I’m sitting with him, leaning my back against his shoulder, kicking my shoes off and putting my stocking feet up on his couch. And I’m thinking about his limitless kindness to me, when myself, I haven’t always been so wonderful to him. Eamon’s kindness is something I’ve always admired greatly about him. That, and his strength. Eamon is one of the strongest men I know. It’s the thing that’s kept me in awe of him all these years, and I feel enormously happy to be sitting here with him now. Grateful that he was steady and enduring enough to wait for me, and not grow bitter, or tired. In fact, there’s a little sensation of tightness in my chest because we’re able to sit so close together again comfortably, and his arm is still around my waist. His hand is resting on my belly. Maybe because of the snow outside, or maybe because of the warmth in here, I’m thinking about that Christmas kiss I denied him years ago. So, when I impulsively wriggle around under his arm and press my lips to his, very belatedly, it still seems connected somehow to everything else that’s happened tonight. I can see in Eamon’s eyes I haven’t managed to shock him, though I’ve startled myself a bit. His calm, inquiring gaze stares mysteriously back at me, and like before, he smiles.

I know something now I didn’t a moment ago. This was never about Jared. Not really. Although the Jareds of this world are beautiful to look at, enticing in their freedom and a torment to the eyes, if he were here right now, asking me again, I would still tell him no. I see now that my world is not like Alexander’s, and my heart’s desire is not always waiting just over the next horizon.

Eamon’s attention has returned to the movie neither one of us is really watching. He tips his head so that it’s resting against mine, and asks, "Would you like a beer?"

I answer, "Sure." And he says with a grin, "Good. Get me one, too, while you’re up, will you?"

It takes me another minute to decide if I‘m willing, even for a moment, to slip away to the kitchen and out of the comfort of his arms.

 

\--end--

 


End file.
